When They Take Me Away, Call The ACLU

Over at the ThomasHawk site, I recently saw this story – Photographer Held For Hours By Police – and thought nothing of it at the time. Now, I read it with an entirely new understanding…

In comparison, though, my story is very tame. Today, at lunch, I happened to drive by an office building with the most beautiful array of Tulips out front. I stopped, grabbed the camera, left the motor running, quickly walked over and took the above picture.

Ya gotta admit, those sure are beautiful flowers. I especially like the solitary white one.

By the time I had taken the third picture, I had a security guard standing next to me. He asked for my name. I asked him politely if I had done something wrong. He then informed me that two important and discrete government organizations (he named the specific names) had offices in that building…and that "they" had told him to go and get my information.

I immediately and VERY politely handed over my drivers license and tried to smile at him. I asked him if I was going to have to hand over the camera…or delete the images. I asked him if he wanted to see the fotos I had taken. I mentioned that all I had done was take the pictures of the flowers.

He looked at me sternly and said that he had confiscated cameras in the past, but that he wasn't going to take mine. He had seen exactly what I had done and didn't need to see the fotos. But, he continued, if I had taken a picture of the building, things would be different.

He handed back my ID and I VERY politely thanked him. Then I walked to my vehicle.

Now I'm on a list.

There is no sign on the building that would indicate who has offices within. In fact, it's a fairly nondescript office building…surrounded by other generic office buildings. So, it was just my dumb luck, I guess.

I’d go back once a week for the next three months and take one mor picture every time. I’d even pop in to reception first, say hi, say he’s had your details already, and you’re just going to photo the flowers – does he want to watch.

The photo is beautiful. When I worked for the parks department – that one white flower would be considered a horrible mistake and people would want to know what the hell happened. How did a white flower end up in the red tulip bed?! The brides would then ask if they could pull it. Some people just don’t appreciate beauty.